Reading:
> Neil Peart / Ghost Rider - a tale of a ghost rider, trying to come to grips with a terrible and dramatic loss, travelling on a motorcycle through North America. Very visual writing. Wets the appetite to do some travelling.
> Franz Kafka / Das Schloss - just started, but I figured I had to try some Kafka after Murakami's Kafka on the Shore.

Listening:
> Giuseppe Ielasi / August - meditative, electronic - makes me sad, and I love it.
> Nate Wooley / The Boxer - 3" CD with very minimal trumpet music - clearly some treated stuff, with a lot of silences

In September & October 2007 SKIF++ toured NL, UK and the US Eastcoast. The schedule:

* Sept 18: concert @ STEIM / SuperCollider Symposium in Amsterdam NL
* Sept 23: lecture & concert @ Modulate / Sonic culture salon in Birmingham UK
* Oct 3: lecture @ Princeton University / concert @ ffmup (free form mash up) in Princeton, NJ, US
* Oct 4: concert @ Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY, US
* Oct 5: concert @ Pixilerations festival in Providence, RI, US
* Oct 7: concert @ Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, US

SKIF++ is Jeff Carey on laptop (audio: SuperCollider), Robert van Heumen on laptop (audio: LiSa) and Bas van Koolwijk (visuals: MAX/Msp/Jitter). More info on SKIF++ on hardhatarea.com.

The visit to the Modulate collective (5 people) in Birmingham was special: the collective is very tight, but also very isolated from other media culture in Birmingham. Their hospitality was amazing, and we were warmly received. Their Sonic culture salon takes place in an old warehouse, with a huge wall for projections and a great soundsystem. Modulate is also the home of Higher Intelligence Agency, a 90's IDM group making ambient in the Pete Namlook / Biosphere tradition. Proof of their extreme modesty was that we only found this out when we were leaving for Amsterdam...

One anecdote comes to mind: after the concert, this kind of highbrow experimental audio-visual art, we went to the pub at the corner for a beer. First thing I noticed was that after 11PM you still have to knock on the door to get in (a left-over from times when pubs had to close at 11PM I suppose). Then when we got our Guinesses, a guy with a mic and a guitar starts singing his heart out - real folkmusic I'd say, in the truest sense of the word. But very very surreal after our concert...

Princeton was very different: naturally a very academic environment, the SKIF++ instrumental electronics seemed far removed from the usual gigs at ffmup. We were received with open arms though - staying at the beautiful campus that was originally build in the 1700's.

The concert in Issue Project Room was a challenge: failing equipment and a tiny audience - probably due to the fact that the current IPR space is quite remote. You have to give it up to the people at IPR though: with the current politics in New York it is not easy to run an experimental music venue in the city that never sleeps...

In Providence it was like coming home. It was my third time there this year, and this time we were playing at the Pixilerations festival. The venue was a beautiful white gallery, the equipment was great, and there was a good audience. Staying there during the one day off was no punishment either - after a great party at Mark's, each of us practicing beat-matching while drinking whiskey, sleeping in, going for a heavy brunch with the friends we stayed with, and strolling along the shore.

Some quotes about the concert:

’As an example, Rovan points to SKIF++, a Dutch electronic-music group known for performing its own compositions using a combination of playful do-it-yourself instruments and computer-game joysticks. “In electronic-music circles, they’re kind of like rock stars,” Rovan says of the group, which will give a 10 p.m. concert at the Space at Alice gallery on Friday, Oct. 5. “The guys are all associated with the STEIM Institute, which is one of the biggest institutes in the world dedicated to developing new musical instruments.” ’
The Providence Journal

’So far, Pixilerations has included openings for gallery shows on Sept. 28, two concerts last weekend and a screening of short films Wednesday at the Cable Car Cinema. Electronic, audio-visual trio SKIF++ will perform tonight at the Space at Alice."They’re like rock stars in Amsterdam," Pletcher said. "All around Europe, too." ’
The Brown Daily Herald

Finally Dartmouth College. Playing a matinee in the recital hall was a little surreal - when we were done at 5pm it was almost as if it never happened.

All in all a great tour. During the rehearsals for it we revisited an older piece, and defined a new structure - more timide than the usual crackly thunderstorms, and especially the new piece was received very well. Bas added some color to the image (other than green that is) which worked very well. We're currently working on compiling a CDR/DVDR release.

After ordering a CD at CDBaby.com I received the shipping email with the usual blurp, followed by the following text. Very very funny, and very very clever! They have my money already, I didn't even receive the CD yet, but I already love them...

Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

Sigh...

In 2005, Seamus Cater (laptop/wacom tablet), Nate Wooley (trumpet) and myself (laptop/controllers) played together with Jack Wright (saxophone) at the Kraakgeluiden concert series. This collaboration was very ad-hoc, without preparation. A year later Nate returned, bringing Audrey Chen (cello/voice/analog synth) and Lionel Kaplan (trumpet) to play as Silo. The second set in this DNK concert was Nate, Audrey, Seamus and me. Again this was a completely improvised set.

Both concerts were succesfull, but the idea came up to spend more time together to develop some kind of structure to guide the improvisation.

So we got into STEIM's studio 1 from October 10 - 15, planning to present the initial results at a STEIM concert on Oct 12, and the final presentation at DNK on Monday Oct 15.
The constraints for this research were:

• 3 acoustic intruments: Nate on trumpet, Audrey on cello & voice, Seamus on harmonica (yes: Seamus switched instruments!);
  
• 1 electronic instrument (me), mainly sampling the acoustic instruments;
  
• describing global structures in terms of soundworlds and transitions between them.
  

• Noise / high tones / point-to-pitch: starting with a more or less constant noisy texture, until Seamus would come in with these crazy high pitches from the harmonica - we would all join him there, until someone starts with injecting discrete short sounds - again followed by others, slowly transforming the short sounds to sustained pitches, ending in a romantic way ;)
  
• Breathing layers: everyone in his own 'breathing' tempo playing textural sounds - trying not to pay attention to others wrt breath lengths - so these would sometimes coincide, but usually be independent of eachother; somewhere during this process more rythmical 'breaths' would emerge, building up to some kind of polyrythmical structure; going back to the original breaths, that would end it.
  

Back in New York. If I'd move back to this city, I would want to live in Brooklyn. The mix between big city and local neighbourhood is perfect.

But I didn't want to write a lot about that. I wanted to mention an idea I stumbled upon through the <>TAG mailing: Change the margins (save the world?)

More later.